


Two Dead Men

by Davechicken



Series: Dead Men [2]
Category: Revolution (TV)
Genre: 2x06, Angst, Episode Tag, M/M, Porn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-03
Updated: 2013-11-03
Packaged: 2017-12-31 09:58:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1030336
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Davechicken/pseuds/Davechicken
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(Apparently I wasn't finished yet.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Two Dead Men

We set out the next day. I had a blazing row with Rachel in public and she slapped me. She slapped me hard and it hurt and I knew she enjoyed doing it. I enjoyed receiving it, let's be honest. But it was all an act, it was all orchestrated. Charlie pleaded with me to stay even as I loaded up the cart and started trotting it out. Rachel sheltered in Gene's arms as her daughter begged me to stay.

"I'm sorry, kid, but I've seen enough... you take care of your mom."

I meant that, and she knew it. Actually I think part of her wanted to join us, and I was sure she wouldn't stay much longer with Rachel and Gene and I didn't blame her... but it was better for all of us to split up like this.

"And you take better care of yourself, Stu." 

I held her eye for as long as was decent and then I nodded. We'd said much more behind all those words. Charlie... bless her - my wonderful niece - was smarter than she had any right to be at times. Much smarter than her idiot of an uncle. She had Rachel's fierce strength and Ben's capacity for forgiveness, love and thought. It made me sad I'd never gotten to know Danny well enough. I'm sure he was just as good a kid as his sister.

It was a violent and deadly world we found ourselves in.

Aaron was there, with Cynthia. He just nodded at me and I nodded back. I wasn't sure if he knew or not, but considering he's apparently some psychic bug-god now... who the hell knew. He at least did not make a scene, and no one else really cared enough about me to do more than acknowledge my passing with polite indifference.

It was better. Much better.

I rode for hours before I heard him stirring. He'd been told to play dead or maybe wind up really dead, actually dead this time. Apparently that had been threat enough and he'd been so still and silent that you could almost forget that Sebastian Monroe - formerly General Monroe of the Monroe Republic, always Bass - was lying in amongst the clothes and other supplies I'd taken from Willoughby. 

I should probably have called out to him sooner. Maybe just stopped the cart and pulled over and asked him to come sit beside me. I don't know... no. I do know why I didn't. I didn't do it because I was afraid of looking at him again. I was afraid of the conversations I knew we were due. I was afraid that once the shock of being alive, still, and me saying the... saying the 's' word... wore off... that he'd remember he was pissed off with me and... and it would all shatter and turn back into pain and hate and loathing again. I was afraid that my Bass was forever broken by what we'd done together, and that not even death and rebirth could wash the stain from our skins.

Miles Matheson. Former General and founding father of the Monroe Republic. Former Marine. Constant coward.

"Miles... can you stop a minute? I need to take a leak."

"Sure." I tugged on the reins and the horse pulled gently to a halt. It was safe enough, here. There was no one around. No one around for miles and miles.

He pushed back the tarpaulin and slid mostly-gracefully to his feet. I glanced at him, but he didn't look back. He wandered off to the trees and I smiled to myself. All these years and he still couldn't piss if he thought anyone could hear. It was hard to take his 'I am a serious dictator' face seriously when you remembered the noise he made if you accidentally snuck up on him with his pants down.

I don't recommend you do it.

When he finally came back - after I was convinced, briefly, that he wasn't going to and that he'd decided he was better off walking in any direction and taking his chances with the wilderness - he went to climb back into the back of the cart.

"You can sit up here, if you want," I said. "Unless you were catching up on sleep."

"Miles, I was dead. I've slept enough for a month. I'd rather keep my eyes open for as long as I can in case Rachel actually poisoned me with something long-acting as well just to dick with me."

"I don't think she'd do that," I replied, but then I wasn't so sure. Rachel was... well. Rachel.

Bass hesitated for a minute before he relented and came up to the front of the cart. I scooched over as far as I could so we didn't have to touch, and Bass pulled himself in beside me. He grunted just a little, and I wondered how shitty that drug had made him feel. Probably quite a lot. 

Bass sat beside me as far away as was possible without him hanging out of the seat, but our knees still knocked when we turned a corner or we both moved the wrong way at the same time. It was... it was ridiculous. Time had been when we'd worked as one, fluid unit. Time had been when we could fire in one another's reloads, when we could throw and catch without a blink. When his body had felt like an extension of my own. When... 

Now even the slightest touch was mortifying. Since... since he'd come round and we'd held one another and cried... I'd been giving him all the space I could. It was the plan for me to get him loose, sure, but after that I wasn't sure. I knew where his kid was, too, and I was going to give him directions and instructions and all that, once we were at the closest, safest town for us to... for us to split up. 

It... it was hard. I'd said so much to the sky that I could never say to his face. It... had felt wrong to capitalise on the relief he'd felt at still being alive, to shoehorn in my forgiveness when... when it might just be that the next day or the next... or the next... he would think again and remember that he hated me. 

I still wanted him to hate me. I did.

"We can't risk stopping anywhere nearby," I pointed out. "Your face is too well known, and it will be all over the Austin press. We're going to have to lay low for a while, yet."

"Suits me," Bass replied. "I don't really want to see anyone. Just my son."

"We'll get to him," I promised.

"I know." 

The stretch between words became longer. Impossibly long. The sound of the horse on the rough dirt road, the slight creak of the right axel that didn't sit quite right and meant I would need to either adjust it or change the load of the cart to compensate. The way the clouds drew close and the air thick with oncoming storm.

"I still need to know why," Bass said, at last. When I had become convinced that he would never speak again. When I became convinced the drug Rachel had fed him had caused some slow, permanent brain-damage. Bass was rarely silent for long, you know. Or... he never used to be.

"He deserved to live for himself, Bass. When I found out... when I found out he was already grown up. And it wasn't fair for him to find out he was yours. Not... not considering what you did."

"I would have been a good father, Miles."

"I know. But... he didn't need a father any more. He grew up without one. And... you were too busy with the Republic to be anything for him."

"Maybe I'd have given it up. Maybe I'd have passed it on to someone else."

"You wouldn't, though."

"No. I suppose you're right."

Silence, some more.

"I never wanted it."

"I know, Bass."

"I only did it for you."

"I know that too."

A jolt sent him against my leg, but this time he didn't slide back. It... it hurt. It hurt to feel him there, pressed to me. It hurt but it was good hurt.

"We fucked up pretty good, huh?" he asked me.

I smiled. "Yeah. We did." It shouldn't have been funny, but it was.

"I mean, I don't know who we thought we were fooling. Two Sergeants. Fuck. I only think I voted once, you know. I had no idea about anything but guns. I guess when you see it that way, we didn't do all that badly. Not for all of it. Some of it... yes. But a lot of it I wouldn't have changed. Not the good bits."

That hurt more than I expected and I laughed again but this time my chest felt like it was going to explode or implode or whatever the hell but whatever it wanted to do it was going to hurt. 

"Maybe if we'd managed to convince Ben to join us, it would have been better?" It still hurt. Still hurt that he'd run and hidden from us. We'd needed him for more than just the power, but he'd taken one look at the brutality of war and fled. And we'd carried on the same as we ever had.

"You can't blame other people for what we did, Miles." It was surprisingly... mature of Bass to admit that, and I turned in shock. "We fucked up. We did some bad shit, in with the good. Not because we were... not because we _wanted_ to be bad, but we... were."

"I... guess. Although... some of it, I wanted to."

"Me too."

Anger and grief and rage had ruled supreme, unchecked by other emotions. I'd gloried in bloodlust and I'd taken hard decisions and some of them I knew were justified, but some of them haunted me years later when 'but we _have to_ ' no longer seemed like justification enough. It was those things that kept me up at night. It was those things I would take with me to my grave.

"I didn't like who we turned into, Bass. I didn't like what the Republic made us. I should have asked you to run away with me, but I couldn't."

"I would have come, if you'd asked."

Fuck. Fuck but that hurt.

"I know. But I didn't want to ask. I didn't... think I was worthy of it. I thought I needed to be apart from you. I thought I needed to suffer. I couldn't... I couldn't kill you and I couldn't... _fuck_..."

Bass' right hand laid itself gently on mine. His palm was hot on the back of my hand, and I nearly jerked back in shock.

"You're an idiot, Miles Matheson."

I laughed. "Yeah. I am."

"I always thought I was better when I was with you, but I guess it's not that I'm better, I guess it's just that... I don't _want_ to _not_ be with you."

My tongue was thick in my mouth, heavy and dull. Bass kept his hand on me and then he just... leaned his head onto my shoulder.

I put my head on his and we rode on like that. Just... close.

***

We pitched the tent together like we'd never been apart. His hands moved around mine in perfect synchronicity. Economy of motion. The horse was hitched and the most valuable things we brought inside in case of looters in the night. We only had one tent, because it's all we'd managed to take. Not like we'd never shared before, even before we were lovers. This felt different, though.

When we were done, we cooked with that same military efficiency and ate. Bass was silent again - thinking - and I didn't dare break his silence. It was a fragile peace that I didn't want to shatter. The less I said, the less likely I was to put my foot back in my mouth. I ignored the looks I sometimes got, because I honestly didn't have an answer for them. I'd said I was sorry and I didn't know what else I could do or say.

Then the food was gone and the fire was put out and all that remained was to retire to our bedrolls. There was nothing else to busy our hands or our mouths with, and I wondered if maybe I should offer to sleep in the back of the cart.

"Did you hate me, Miles?"

I was surprised by the question.

"No."

"Why... why?"

Why didn't I hate him? Or why did I do what I did if I didn't?

"Bass, I was a fucking idiot. I pushed you into everything, and then I fucking chickened out. You didn't do anything I wouldn't have done myself. I hated _me_ , not you."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"...when have I ever been emotionally smart, Bass?"

More silence.

"How do we fix this?"

"You... you even want to?"

I shouldn't have said that. Foot in mouth: that's Miles Matheson. Bass' beautiful eyes tightened in pain and I realised how fucked up I really was.

"You're a dickhead, Miles," is all Bass said and he went into the tent alone.

Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. 

I had to fight the urge to run. I always had to fight the urge to run. I could have just thrown a pack together and wandered off and left Bass with the horse and cart and assumed his natural survival instinct would keep him from doing anything foolish. Or I could just have slept in the cart like a spurned lover and in the morning we could ride on and pretend none of this had ever happened...

...I went into the tent.

Bass was lying on his side, facing the side of the tent and looking anywhere but at me.

"Bass..."

He didn't even acknowledge my presence.

Bass Monroe. The man I loved so much I fucked up a quarter of the country for him. The man I loved so much I burned ten thousand ships. The man I was destined to do nothing but hurt.

"Bass. C'mon, man. Don't do this."

"Don't do what?" His tone was surly and he had every right to be angry with me. In fact, he was finally giving me what I'd wanted for so long. Anger. Rage. Hate.

"I said I was sorry. Okay? I'm sorry. I'm sorry I'm a shitty best friend and I'm sorry I fucked your life up and I'm sorry I tried to kill you and I'm sorry I'm the biggest damn idiot the world has ever seen. Don't you get it, Bass? I'm no good. It's why I left."

"You left because you're a coward," he spat at me.

Oh. Oh yes.

"You're right."

That got his attention. Bass rolled over and I could see the unshed tears brimming in his eyes.

"I am a coward. I admit it. I fucked up and I ran off. I ran off and I left you with all my fucking mess. I turned tail like a worthless, disloyal whelp and I should have been there for you. I should have _talked_ to you. But I didn't. And you should hate me for it, and I never got why you didn't."

"I did." Bass' eyes narrowed at me. "But I loved you more than I hated you. All I ever wanted was you."

"You're fucked in the head, Bass."

"No one would ever deny that. Who else would fall for you?"

Who else indeed? Bass saw all the worst in me because I let him. Because I didn't just let him, because I threw it all in his face in an attempt to throw him off. Because I spat and I cursed and I bitched and I threatened him with death and abandonment and I did everything I could to try and get him to change his mind.

And even now... even now he hadn't. 

I was not worthy of the loyalty - the love - but it seemed that I was unable to dislodge it, either. For good or for bad, Bass loved me and even though I'd sent him to his death with the worst insult you could - robbing him of his family, of his shot at love, of his shot at redemption - here he still was wondering why I didn't love him back.

But I did. I did love him back.

I'd never stopped loving him back.

"We don't... there's no Republic, now," Bass went on. "There's no one following us. There's no more Militia. This whole shit with the Patriots... fuck it, Miles. They burnt our city to the ground... they blamed _me_... but we can just let it all go. We can let it all go, man. We're old. We did our fighting. Why don't we let the kids sort it out? Why don't we just... give up?"

Give up? When I'd watched as those nukes fell on Philly and on Atlanta? When I knew these bastards were behind it all? When I knew... when...

"Why?"

"Why not?"

It just... it just made sense that we would keep fighting. It was what we did, he and I. We fought. 

"I got nothing, man. Nothing. They killed everyone but you. The ones I didn't get killed myself. I don't want it any more. I don't want any of it. All I want is to find my son..."

I winced. "Right."

He reached out. Touched my knee. I must have been telegraphing my hurt from a mile off.

"I want... I just want my family back, Miles. The ones that are still alive. Don't you think we've both given enough blood? Isn't it time we just... stopped?"

That's what I'd thought, when I'd tried drinking myself slowly to death in Chicago. I'd tried to stop. Tried to stop killing. Tried to stop feeling. But then a kid with a story and a heart dragged me back out, and since then I'd been fighting every damn day. All over again. Why? I didn't want to rule the world, not any more. I didn't want bad things to happen, but I didn't want to be General Matheson under any flag or banner.

What did I want?

"I'm sorry," I said again. I stared at him, willing him to understand. "I'm so fucking sorry."

"What do you want, Miles?" Bass was back to echoing the thoughts I had. Maybe he knew he did it, maybe he didn't.

"I don't know."

"Okay."

His hand found mind and tugged me down. I sighed and went, lying nose to nose with him.

"I never stopped loving you, Miles. Even when you were a fucking ass."

I smiled. "I was always a fucking ass."

That did make him smile back, which was a start.

"I never stopped, either," I admitted. "I wanted to. I wanted to hate you. But I couldn't. I'm a fucking idiot."

"Yes. Yes you are."

"I really fucked up, didn't I?"

"Yep." Bass shrugged. "You did."

"Is there even any way I can make it up to you?"

"Depends."

"On what?"

"What you're planning to do, in the long run?"

Probably, I thought to myself, hand you over to your son and then slide back and wait for you to not notice I have gone. I didn't deserve Bass, and he deserved... better than me. He deserved someone who would treat him well. He deserved some peace and some rest. Maybe I'd rejoin the fighting, or maybe I'd leave it to Charlie like he suggested and give someone else a chance to make the future bright and shiny. But that... that wasn't what he wanted.

I had given Bass every motive and every opportunity to hate me. I had given him all the ammunition the world had. I had kicked him when he was down. I had cursed his name. I had turned whole armies against him. I had betrayed him in every imaginable shape or way known to man.

And all he ever did was look hurt and open up his arms and wait for me to stop being a dick.

We were fucked up together, but I was beginning to see there was no other way for either of us. He loved me too much to stop, and I loved him too much to ever really go.

My mouth opened and closed several times. I must have looked like a demented fish. All the while Bass just waited, looking like every breath hurt.

"Whatever you want me to," I said, at last. "If you say we should fight, then I'll fight. If you say we should stop, then I'll stop. If you say you want me out of your life once and for all... I'll go."

"I don't, Miles. I should but I don't."

"Then I'll stay with you. And I'll... I'll... fuck, Bass. I'll do whatever the hell you want from me. I'll do it. I'll... I don't want this to happen ever again." I bit my lip until it hurt. 

Bass' hand on my face was warm and gentle. Fingers fanned around behind my jaw, and he teased at the tightness of my mouth. I was grinding my teeth, like I always did when I got tense. 

"It has to be different," Bass insisted. "Promise me, Miles. Promise me we won't make the same mistakes twice."

"Not if I can help it."

That seemed to be answer enough, because he leaned in and closed the gap, chapped and sore lips running against my own. We lay in the dark of the tent and we kissed like the shy teens neither of us had ever been. I closed my eyes against the taste of him, layered with so many memories of good and bad. It was overwhelming, right then, the past. Our past. Us. I opened my mouth to say something, but Bass' tongue stole my breath away. It slid in and against my own, insidious and caring. A viper in my bosom, in my bed. Bass was the poison I would never stop drinking. He was the liquor I was addicted to and now I had a taste again, I knew I would never, ever stop.

I grabbed his face between my own hands - one bandaged and all but useless, the other very much not - and I bit down on his lip until I felt him squirm. I tried to hold him down, but Bass was having none of that. He pushed back up, as I pushed down, and we met somewhere in the middle. Neither one of us wanted to yield. Neither one of us wanted to submit.

I broke the kiss when I needed to breathe and I glared down at him, hungrily.

I wanted.

I wanted everything.

"Miles..."

Bass' voice, rough like the morning after a good night before. Dry like your tongue after whisky. Deep like the emotion that ran through me to my core.

"Bass."

"If you leave me one more time, I will kill you."

"If I leave you one more time, I _want_ you to kill me."

"You stupid fuck."

Then he moved. He moved like all that had been holding him back was my words. He moved and he pushed me down and back and my head hit the floor and sent stars spinning around it. I was merciless before the wave of him, and I wanted to be. He pressed my hands above my head and held them there, his teeth finding the thrum of blood through my throat and biting down. I cried out in bliss at the pain of it, and that just made him bite harder. My cock - hah - it always got with the program. It was like it was hardwired somehow to him. No one else ever got me off as hard as Bass could. No one. And I've tried plenty of times to drown myself in someone else, but I always find myself coasting shallows and barely scraping the edge off my need.

Not now. Oh, not now. My cock was straining already and Bass had barely started. I was on my back and Bass was straddling my hips and he was pulling my clothes apart like a madman. My hands moved to his shoulders and he growled but he let me hold on, bucking like a fucking bitch under his touches and gasping out for more. Bass was everything. He was oxygen, and I hadn't breathed in years. Bass was fire and I was freezing to death. Bass was all I'd ever wanted and needed and like a fool I had thought denying myself was right, thought that if I made myself miserable that somehow I atoned for all my sins. But surely we had suffered enough? Surely his death and my horror were penance? 

His hands stole into my pants and he grabbed my cock and he held on tight.

"I shouldn't do this," Bass snarled, his voice catching like the snags in your clothes when you ran through the thickets at night with the hounds on your heels.

"You don't deserve this," he went on, and his hand clutched tighter until it hurt. Oh it hurt. It hurt so good I could barely breathe. 

"You don't deserve _me_."

" _No_ ," I agreed. "I don't."

"Tell me you're sorry," Bass demanded. His tone brooked no argument. His words were cruel and sharp. I screamed inside my head and tried desperately to hump his hand to get off.

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry. I shouldn't have left you. I shouldn't have hurt you. I fucked up, Bass. I fucked up bad. I'm so fucking sorry. You trusted me and I let you down. You loved me and I let you down. I'm sorry. Don't let me do it again. Don't let me leave you again."

It was enough. It was enough because Bass choked any further words out of me with his tongue pushed so far in my mouth I nearly gagged, the hand on my dick going faster, faster, harder, tighter... and with a wordless scream I was coming all over his hand. It hurt. It hurt good. It hurt like I'd wanted it to, and he didn't leave off until my heels thrummed against the ground sheet and I thought I was going to die. 

Then he let go.

"I'm never letting you go again," Bass promised. "Never, Miles. Never."

I surged up with what strength I had left and I pushed him back down. He was surprised but he didn't resist. He let me do it and I knew I had to prove to him I meant it. Knew I'd have to prove it the only way I could: by being there, day after day. By loving him the way he deserved. By being what he needed, and not just taking what I wanted from him.

I pulled his pants open and was - stupidly - relieved to see he was as into this as I had been. I don't know why I doubted it, he'd always been hard for me. Even before I'd known it. He was beautiful. Beautiful and wanting.

"I'm sorry," I said one last time as I wrapped my lips around his cock. 

Bass swore and hit the ground with a fist. His hips bucked up and I struggled around his length, feeling it stroke the back of my throat. I was out of practice with this and it made my eyes sting.

"Shit," Bass mumbled. "Sorry."

I waved a hand that it was fine, then I found his and dropped it on the back of my own head. Bass took that offer and wound his fingers through my hair, holding me in place for a moment, before he relented and guided me up and down. It was good. It was oh-so-good. I wanted to please him with my mouth in a way my words were never able to. I wanted to draw out the pain from his body and leave him with only happiness. I wanted things you shouldn't want from a goddamn blowjob in a tent in the middle of nowhere with a man you loved and you hated and who you never, ever could kill.

I wanted Bass Monroe.

I wanted forgiveness.

But for tonight, I would settle for making the man sleep easier. I would settle for a smile on those pained lips. I would settle for the sound of him breaking and the taste of his come sliding down my throat. He rode my face and it didn't take long. Sometimes it didn't. Sometimes all it needed was a few sharp touches.

I wanted forgiveness.

I wasn't going to absolve my sins in one short, sweet, rough night...

...but I could at least make a start.


End file.
